


don't read the last page (but i stay)

by SeptemberSevertana



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, New Year's Eve, coming home, past Catra/Double Trouble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22077610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeptemberSevertana/pseuds/SeptemberSevertana
Summary: Catra comes home after a long night. Someone's waiting up for her.
Relationships: Catra/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	don't read the last page (but i stay)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'New Year's Day' by Taylor Swift, because of course. 
> 
> I wrote this in the middle of the night on New Year's. This past year especially has been a long one for me and for many of us and I wanted to thank you for helping me get through it. I love you guys and I hope you like this little drabble.

Catra fumbled with her keys as she made her way to the apartment door, swearing as she dropped them. Fitting her key in the lock felt almost insurmountable. Once inside, Catra dropped her coat and kicked off her heels as quietly as possible, and likely failed, considering she’d had a few too many complimentary champagne glasses to be delicate. Her keys went into a bowl by the door, clanging as they hit their matching set. Well, matching except Glimmer had a unicorn keychain on hers and Catra refused to even ironically subject her keyring to that. 

Catra sighed. She didn’t like parties, never had, but the champagne sort of compensated. 

Glimmer had left the Christmas lights on. They were yellow-ish, not the blinding white of the police car stopped at the crosswalk outside. Everything felt warm, seen through those lights. The string of lights curled around the window frame, wreathed it, washed it in affection, like someone’s hand cupping her face. Glimmer had left the Christmas lights on. And they were pretty, they twinkled. She seemed to remember Glimmer setting a timer so the lights would turn on at five and turn off at midnight, but maybe that was just the strobe-looking set-up that Glimmer had convinced the landlady to let her put in the front of the building. Must have been. It was past midnight now, maybe one am, and the lights still shone. 

Catra considered just crashing on the couch. She didn’t want to bumble down the hall and wake Glimmer up. 

She slumped down, sitting on the arm of the sofa, her face in her hands. Some asshole had spilled whatever posh alcohol he was drinking onto her dress, staining the already wine-dark fabric. Catra had bought this dress three years ago, twirling in the changing room, watching Glimmer’s eyes go all sweet with joy. The bodice fit her like a glove, and Glimmer had said even if Catra never wore it to an event, she would still make Catra take it out of her closet every once in a while because she knew how good it would make Catra feel. And some asshole had spilled his drink on it. Catra had thought that wearing this dress to her boss’s New Year’s Eve party would somehow rid her of that memory, of Glimmer wanting to make her happy. It didn’t. 

She pulled bobby pins out of her hair, setting each one on the coffee table. 

Catra liked her job. Some days. She supervised hundreds of people, organized and planned and strategized. She liked being in control, liked that any number of people on a given day would have to do things the way she required. Hordak, the company president, wasn’t a wonderful guy, but she respected him. He was the one who wanted her at this party. He wanted her to shake hands and kiss asses and solidify client relationships. Catra was the diplomatic one of the two of them, after all. But schmoozing got old very quickly, and there were only so many old white men she could talk to before she started in on the alcohol. 

She ran her hands through her hair, making sure all the bobby pins had been set free. 

Her personal life had taken an unexpected downturn this year. Her partner, affectionately called Double Trouble, had left her eight months ago, almost out of the blue. They’d been dating for over a year, and Catra had been thinking of proposing to them. But one day, Double Trouble packed their bags; Catra remembered standing next to the kitchen table, mute, listening as they told her why they were leaving. They said she didn’t open up, they said she buried herself in work, they said she refused to get any help for her panic attacks and childhood abuse and shit like that. They said she loved somebody else. And Catra watched them leave, still unable to speak. Double Trouble was right. And she got help. Glimmer moved in with her to help with the rent and Catra got a therapist. But then her job got a lot worse. It turned out that the accountant Hordak had hired, against her advice she might add, had committed fraud and laundered money through two other corporations before coming to work for them. The legal trouble had destroyed what free time she had left, keeping her tied up in calls and emails and frantically trying to fix the finances this man had blown through. 

Catra, despite her employees’ theorizing that she was a vampire who didn’t need sleep, was exhausted. She was so, so exhausted. She couldn’t be more glad that this mess was over, and she could start some things over again in the new decade. 

“How was the party?” 

Catra looked down at the couch. Glimmer, or what could be discerned of her under the lump of blankets, shifted to look at her. “It was long and I’m glad it’s over,” Catra replied. 

Glimmer nodded. “I waited up for you. But I think I fell asleep.” 

Catra blinked, her eyes getting all teary and strained and her sinuses making her head hurt worse. “That’s okay, Sparkles.” 

“I wanted to make sure you got home safe,” Glimmer mumbled, settling back down. 

Catra shuffled her body until she could lay down next to Glimmer, tears finally running down her face and dripping through her makeup. Glimmer pulled Catra into her body, her fingers wiping Catra’s cheeks. 

“I’m sorry,” Catra blurted. “I’m sorry.” 

“You have nothing to be sorry about, just go to sleep, okay?” 

Glimmer’s hand, after a few minutes, began to still. Catra’s eyes began to drift shut. 

“I love you,” she murmured into Glimmer’s shoulder. “I love you.” 

Happy New Year, Catra thought to herself. The yellow lights flickered in the window and she fell asleep. 


End file.
